#lavender scare

[brinconvenient]

Jesus Fucking Christ.

In case you thought, somehow, that the trans people who have been telling you that the efforts to stigmatize transness as obscene and our mere existence as pornographic was only the beginning and that it was the construction of a launchpad to come after ALL queer people in the same way were all just being hysterical and alarmist, please note that the Second Lavender Scare has truly begun.

Take special note:

These firings also come just days after the quiet repeal of protections meant to prevent intelligence agencies from spying on LGBTQ+ people solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As Bloomberg reported, “The Office of Intelligence and Analysis posted an updated policy manual late last week that removes references to those characteristics in sections that set guardrails on gathering intelligence.” Now, with far fewer trans and queer people left in the intelligence community, there will be even fewer voices to push back if these tools are turned against us.

Sounds like COINTELPRO is coming back, and this time it's personal.

[alanshemper]

“If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you’ve got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker.”

—Sen. Joe McCarthy, helpfully explaining how the red scare and the lavender scare intersected with each other

[disease]

How LGBT Civil Servants Became Public Enemy No. 1 in the 1950s

Denounced, questioned, pressured to resign and even fired, LGBT people were once rooted out of the State Department in what was known as the Lavender Scare.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern?:

Here is what happened. An intelligence employee at the National Security Agency leaked chats of fellow officers to a political activist. The chats included inappropriate messages, mostly around medical issues, plus mockery of political commenters. The political activist published the chats, calling for the employees to be punished. The richest man in the world used his social media platform to promote the attack. The new Director of National Intelligence immediately fired the analysts. What seems problematic with this story? The inappropriate discussion on a work platform is unprofessional. But it is also hard to eliminate. If you are a supervisor, maybe you issue a warning. The bigger issue is that a political activist has a direct pipeline into everything government employees are saying, even platforms that are supposed to include sensitive security messages. Who leaked the information? The bigger issue is that the DNI fired these employees without even a hint of due process. The bigger issue is that these employees were targeted and fired because they were trans. It is simply impossible to believe that a group of White male analysts would have been peremptorily fired for engaging in what their Commander in Chief has deemed “locker room talk.” The political activist being mocked, LibsofTikTok, were known for their anti-trans activism. That is why she was being mocked in the first place. The political activist who broke the story, Chris Rufo, also mischaracterizes much of the discussion: he presents shared advice about transition surgeries and related medical issues as sexually deviant fetishes, leading to headlines like this in right-wing media: Pink News analyzed the leaked chats and characterized the discussions as “honest and open accounts of various LGBTQ+ topics and experiences, many of them apparently written by trans employees and offered up as useful advice for colleagues.” People outside the trans community may have different levels of comfort with these discussions, but the context is that Rufo and others have consistently fed a stereotype of trans people as dangerous deviants. You don’t have to condone what the employees did to realize that the accusations of deviance are being used here in a way that would never be the case for other employees. None of this is about security. Not really. It is about purging certain people and identities from public life. Whatever you think about trans people, you should be disturbed by this. If you are familiar with the Lavender Scare — when gay people were purged from government positions in the 1940s to 1960s — you probably know it as a cautionary tale from an intolerant past. A tale of moral panic and persecutions not to be repeated. But it is being repeated.

[...] LGBTQ and especially trans public employees are targeted. Trump has ordered that trans people not be allowed serve in the military, and for existing trans service members to be purged.

[...] How many of those people who bemoaned cancel culture — many of whom also had a sideline in anti-trans hate — will push back? Chris Rufo is no longer pretending that concern about cancel culture needs to be even-handed. He says the rules of cancel culture simply need to be rewritten:

[to determine how the Right can protect its own members from unjust cancellation attempts and how it can enforce just consequences on political opponents who violate the new terms.]

Rufo demonstrated this tactic. The day before he wrote: “Social media posts, often imbued with irony and hyperbole, should no longer be grounds for automatic social and professional annihilation” he published his expose of trans public employees in chat rooms, leading to their firing.

The purging of LGBTQ+ (and especially trans) government officials is reminiscent of a very dark period in history: the Lavender Scare.

[victusinveritas]

From Atlas Obscura: For many women of the 1950s and 1960s, these slim paperbacks were pivotal, offering a sense of relief. These books, of course, were lesbian pulp fiction, throwing out a lifeline of a suggestion to these women that they were, perhaps, not entirely alone in the world. https://bit.ly/3zJ2Uzt

Publishers likely never intended any of these books to tumble into the hands of impressionable young women, and certainly not those about lesbian love. But pulp fiction books were cheap and disposable; the most successful among them sold in the hundreds of thousands or even the millions, with many of them being lesbian pulps. Tereska Torrès’ 1950 novel, “Women’s Barracks,” is often cited as the first example in the genre. It was the 244th best-selling novel in the United States before 1975, despite being banned for obscenity in multiple states.

While some novels may have been written as voyeuristic pieces of literature, there were also those that changed women’s lives, and in so doing, passed the test of time. These were the books that reached women who were isolated, offering them a lifeline and a promise that they were not alone in the world.

[eepylesbean]

ALL MY STUCKY BITCHES

IF U HAVE HULU OR SHOWTIME WATCH THE NEW SHOW "FELLOW TRAVELERS" RIGHT NEOWWW!!!

ITS THEM IN A DIFFERENT FONT I SWEAR TO YOU!!!

[whisperingwilla]

No deal—that 1950s shit THEY want from me. I just wanna stay in that lavender haze. 🧡🤍🩷💜🩵

[commiepinkofag]

Liquor and Cannabis Board Pauses Enforcement of Lewd Conduct Regulations

After raiding four gay bars last week and finding nothing but a nipple and jockstraps, the Liquor and Cannabis Board has paused enforcement of its lewd conduct rules, according to a signed letter sent to state officials. The Board also paused participation in Seattle’s Joint Enforcement Team, a coalition of police, fire, and other city departments, and will reopen rule-making to amend or repeal the lewd conduct violation regulations. The Board also said it won’t issue citations for anything they saw over the weekend—including a bartender’s exposed nipple at The Cuff Complex and jockstraps seen at The Seattle Eagle—and it will review its past practices and policies, including the use of photographs as evidence.

[clemminty]

Just Focus On Me is a coming-of-age queer story set in 1956 Los Angeles, primarily told through the journals of Victoria Payne and Jane Myers. Jane, a pastor's daughter, and Victoria, a girl from New York who faced bullying after her crush outed her as a lesbian, navigate their feelings for each other against a backdrop of societal expectations and personal insecurities.

The narrative delves into themes of self-discovery, acceptance, and the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ individuals during this era. Supporting characters like Troy, Priscilla, Dante, and Lynn add depth to the story, each bringing their unique perspectives and struggles. Together, they form a tight-knit group that supports one another as they explore their identities, confront prejudices, and seek connection in a world that often feels unwelcoming.

Amidst moments of humor and lightheartedness, the characters face deeper emotional conflicts, particularly regarding their relationships and societal pressures. As they bond over shared interests and experiences, they learn to embrace their true selves and find strength in their friendships. Ultimately, the story highlights the importance of love, acceptance, and community in the journey of self-discovery.

If you enjoy Banana Fish, Nana, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Fellow Travelers, or Heartstopper, I encourage you to check out my book, as it was inspired by those series!

It's currently available on Wattpad and Webnovel. If you have any suggestions for other writing platforms where I could publish it, please let me know. Thank you! 😽 (Alice Oseman, I love your work!!! ❤️ )

[mafaldaknows]

Plus ça change, plus ç’est la même chose 🫤

[piscesthepoet]

lavender

[aclaywrites]

Now you can watch a whole documentary about this miserable faggot and all the lives he ruined.

Fellow Travelers is a great jumping off place to learn about this aspect of US gay history. Learn from the past so that we aren’t doomed to repeat it!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

In the early 1950s, a moral panic over gay people swept across America. LGBTQ+ individuals were cast as threats—vulnerable to blackmail, labeled “deviant sex perverts,” and accused of colluding with communist governments. Senator Joseph McCarthy, infamous for the Red Scare, pressured President Eisenhower into signing an executive order purging LGBTQ+ people from government service. With that signature, the campaign escalated rapidly—up to 10,000 federal employees were fired or forced to resign during what became known as the Lavender Scare, a far less taught but even more devastating purge than the Red Scare. The episode remains a lasting stain on U.S. history. And now, it appears we are witnessing its revival: 100 intelligence officials were just fired for participating in an LGBTQ+ support group chat—an internal network not unlike employee resource groups (ERGs) at most companies.

The firings stem from out-of-context chat logs leaked by far-right commentator Chris Rufo on Monday. Sources tell Erin in the Morning that the chat functioned as an ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ safe space, where participants discussed topics like gender-affirming surgery, hormone therapy, workplace LGBTQ+ policies, and broader queer issues. Rufo, however, framed these conversations as evidence of misconduct, claiming that “NSA, CIA, and DIA employees discuss genital castration” and alleging discussions of “fetishes, kink, and sex.” To Rufo and his audience, merely talking about being transgender and the realities of transition is enough to be labeled “fetish” content. Eisenhower and McCarthy would have killed for such an easily accessible list of LGBTQ+ federal employees—and the flimsy pretext to purge them.

Within a day of the chat logs’ release, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that all participants in the “obscene, pornographic, and sexually explicit” chatroom would be terminated. As of today, The New York Times reports that at least 100 members of the ERG-adjacent LGBTQ+ chat have been fired. The Times further notes that Gabbard is being briefed on “other inappropriate activity” elsewhere, signaling the potential for an even broader crackdown on LGBTQ+—and especially transgender—employees in the federal government. What we have just witnessed is the beginning of an LGBTQ+ purge in government, with a particular focus on transgender employees. Pride ERG chats and LGBTQ+ support groups are commonplace in workplaces across the United States, including within federal agencies. These spaces function not just as forums for discussing policy, lifestyle, and identity, but as de facto lists of LGBTQ+ employees—workers who join to stay informed, find community, and access support. The same mechanism used to justify this mass firing can be weaponized across any branch of government. If merely discussing gender-affirming care is deemed “obscene,” then every LGBTQ+ workplace chat could serve as pretext for an even broader purge.

This was heavily telegraphed in the lead-up to the 2024 election. Project 2025 explicitly aimed to define transgender people as obscene, and now, that agenda is taking shape. If Rufo can convince the public that transgender people merely discussing their medical care or LGBTQ+ people discussing sexual health constitutes obscene, fireable content, it’s easy to see this logic expanding into other areas of government or even into the public sphere. These same arguments have already been used to justify book bans against Gender Queer, drag bans, and broader censorship efforts. Now, Rufo is leveraging the Republican Party’s manufactured disgust toward transgender people to target all LGBTQ+ individuals in government—and beyond. This is to say nothing of the real-world impact of purging so many trans and queer intelligence officials.

Lavender Scare 2.0 is coming to the federal government, as DNI Secretary Tulsi Gabbard fired 100+ people for being in an LGBTQ+ support group chat at the urging of anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Christopher Rufo. This is the beginning of purges of LGBTQ+ people from the federal government.

[the-river-rix]

And if I make a collection of lavender scare references (or what I count as them) in saf

[millionmovieproject]

NEW EPISODE ALERT!!

In this remarkably glitch-free episode of Social Contract, Nicolette again flies solo while Jared is on his UK tour. In seeing the themes of anti-gay, anti-communist, anti-woman, anti-immigrant, and racism flourish in the government, Nicolette gives a social history of 100 years of the US gov promoting these same things on repeat. Where they once took aim at Hollywood, they now take aim at themselves and the general population. They don't change, but can we?

Watch here:

Like what you see? We're fully independent, and could use your support! Follow on:

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[chark80]

Every once in a while I remember Roy Cohn's patch on the AIDS Quilt and it makes me emotional every time.

Roy Cohn was a massive piece of shit: one of the instigators of the Lavendar Scare and arguably responsible for the rise of Trump - I dunno, having this patch as his legacy seems fitting.